Search the light
by HoganTime
Summary: COMPLETE Follow up from the story In the name of honour. How does Hogan feel after discovering that he flew the air raid that killed his brothers wife and son?


This story is part of "In the name of honour". It describes how Hogan felt after coming to know, that his brothers wife and son were killed in an air raid, of which he was part.

* * *

"No!". With his own cry still ringing in his ears, Hogan awoke. Around him was nothing but darkness, darkness that could be penetrated by nothing but light, light which was not available after lights out.

_Another nightmare then. I had almost forgotten how dark a prison camp can be in the middle of the night._

He shifted around uncomfortably, trying to comfort himself with the little warmth the blankets provided in the middle of the winter. His breath felt warm in the cold night, so he put the blanket over his head.

In the dark, he was waiting, yet he did not know for what. Sleep? He knew, that sleep would not come after this dream, having experienced this nightmare before. Actually, almost every night since Tom and George had left together.

Deprived of enough fresh air, he stuck his head outside the blanket again, staring into the darkness. The searchlight swept over the Barracks and for a brief moment he could see the interior of his office. He recalled the three of them sitting in here, just before they left, saying their goodbyes, as if this had been the last time they would see each other.

Angrily, he pushed the image out of his mind. It always came in nights like this, nights were he woke up with a cry and had nothing but darkness around him. In the past, long before the war, he had liked darkness, especially the darkness of the night, for it seemed so comforting. It embraced him and carried him to sleep, bringing him dreams in which the world was no longer like today. In that world he was like superman. He could save anybody in any way he wanted.

That glorious superhero days were now long gone. Together with the war and his command in the RAF had come the nights of flying bombing raids. The nights off air raids against London, the Blitz and the everlasting fear that one day you can´t get away in time, when a bomb hits your building.

When he was shot down this fear was replaced by the constant burden of command over the sabotage group behind enemy lines. Worries, missions and new plans often kept him awake at night.

And now, another subject of worry had been added to his nightly dreams. One sentence George had spoken, one name of a city. Georges wife and son had died in the bombing raid, which Hogan had flown over Hamburg, in the night he was shot down. Although he knew, that he could not have known that they lived there and that it might not had been his plane that hit their house, he felt empty since then.

Realization had finally dawned on him, that no matter how good your intentions to end the war, there is always the danger that you hit more than the intended target. Hogan could not have felt more guilty, when he had shot them himself.

_I was doing my job, I was obeying orders, nothing else. I never intended to kill people and I never liked it._

Still, his mind protested. He had not had to join the army, he had volunteered for the assignment in England. He had enjoyed being a Squadron Leader, he had enjoyed the flying and secretly the bombings, because they meant that the war might end sooner than otherwise.

He closed his eyes. Maybe tonight, sleep would return and he wouldn´t have to lie awake until the sun came up.

With his eyes closed, the dream replayed itself inside his head. Two people crouched under a staircase. The older one, a handsome woman, resembling Hogans mother tried to protect her child, a boy, with Toms eyes and Georges face. They had no chance to escape, when the house crashed down upon them. Hogan could do nothing but watch, while the woman and her child screamed for help, which did not come. This was usually the moment, when Hogan awoke with a loud "No!".

Helpless, that´s what they were, helpless, just as all the civilians in this war, who became the victims of those, trained to be murderers.

Hogan stared around the office again, when the searchlight swept through. It had become such a familiar sight in the past weeks.

While he tossed and turned until the sun came up, he wondered, if he would ever be able to sleep through the night again.

* * *

Weeks later, the men noticed that the intervals between their CO´s nightmares increased. And that their Colonel cared more than ever for the lives of the people involved in their missions. He did everything that could be done to minimise the loss of life on both sides.

Kinch watched the ongoing poker game with a pleasant smile on his face. Nothing had changed it seemed. Newkirk was still beating Carter at poker, LeBeau was still the same patriot, but he sensed that al of them knew why the Colonel did what he did and that they respected him for it. Hogan had seen that he could not escape his feelings of guilt, but he had turned them into an ideal, which he followed with all his heart.


End file.
